Subj : A 1st try....
To   : JOHN WILSON
From : TODD HENSON
Date : Wed Nov 01 2000 12:27 am

> SGID: 1:153/7715.0 39ff42c0
> -=> TODD HENSON wrote to FRANK MASINGILL <=-
> 
>  > ... That is why when I
>  > hear the Divine Ground of existence that we experience in
>  > consciousness being talked about as an "existing thing" I think I am
>  > hearing something strange indeed...
> 
> 
>  TH> What is strange is your continued resistance to actually
>  TH> answering questions that have arisen
>  TH> around this very thing. What do you mean by God being
>  TH> non-existent? If He doesn't exist, then
>  TH> how can He be more than a mere figment of the mind?
> 
>  I'll attempt. The word exist is used, I believe in two senses:
>  A `thing' exists.
> 
>  There's God, there's a tree....
> 
>  God does not exist in that way/sense.


If by that context you mean "thing" as in a physical entity, then I'd
agree.


>  A way of saying `God' transcends `existance'
> 
>  ...and a human's ability to understand/comprehend/explain.
> 
>  "God's thoughts are not your thoughts"....
> 
>  Just, as I said, an attempt...


And a good one! Now we're getting somewhere. Another sense of the word
exist is " that which 
is real, rather than being a figment of the imagination". In that sense,
God exists, but the nature 
of His existence is far beyond what we can relate to or fully grasp. God
isn't an object, but He 
exists in the sense that He is real, rather than being something that I
just made up. God is real, 
and exerts a kind of tension on the soul of man. 

The soul, the inner man, the spirit also exists, but I am not saying that
it exists in the same 
sense that a tree exists.
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